“In the city. He is waiting but to be received by you ere he return to France to arrange his affairs in that country.”
“He need not long delay his departure, then: tell him so.”
“You forgive us, then?” cried she, almost bursting with gratitude.
“No!—never!”
“Not forgive us!—not acknowledge us!”
“Never! never!” reiterated he, with a thick utterance that sounded like the very concentration of passion. The words seemed to have a spell in them to conjure up a feeling in her who heard, as deeply powerful as in him who spoke them.
“Am I no longer your daughter, sir?” asked she, rising and drawing herself to her full height before him.
“You are a Countess, madam,” said he, with a scornful irony; “I am but an humble man, of obscure station and low habits. I know nothing of nobility, nor of its ways.”
“I ask again, do you disown me?” said she, with a voice as calm and collected as his own.
“For ever and ever,” said he, waving his hand, as though the gesture was to be one of adieu. “You are mine no longer,—you had ceased to be so ere I knew it. Go to your home, if you have one; here, you are but an intruder,—unasked, unwished for!”